Welcome to chapter 2!
The night before the suspected murder of Laius Knight, the Drones and Dominators were manually checked by hired help. The help were paid professionals who's IDs had been checked and cross checked with current people on the M.W.P.S.B's data base. None of them seemingly showed any signs of being out of place. According to Shion, they were doing exactly everything that they were supposed to do to the machinery. No add ons, and no takeaways. These people were the real deal.
Yayoi pointed to the data base's match, the three Drone technicians were shown on the screen in front of Tsunemori. Their identifications were pristine. Showing no signs of tampering, let alone being fake. Possibly these people were the real deal, but how did the Drone just break itself in a matter of hours? How did it manage to break at the exact moment that Laius Knight went to grab a Dominator?
How did the Sibyl System not tell the difference?
Tsunemori sighed deeply, sitting in a chair and rubbing the corners of her eyes out of exhaustion. Her head was muzzy with thoughts. Sure enough, there had to be a way that the Drone was tampered with. There was no other way. If not manually, then there had to be a way that it was tampered via computer. But with no signs of a hacking, that theory was running dry itself. She rested the side of her head against her fist, looking up at the ceiling and biting the inside of her cheek in thought.
There are possibly other ways to find out if the system was impregnated at any point, right? She thought to herself, her eyes widening. Like staff logins.
"Yayoi! Do the people who work as Drone technicians have the access into logging on the Institutes private files?"
She blinked once, thinking before answering. "To an extent, I suppose that is the case. They are low personnel, meaning their ranking into gaining access in the system would be low, but not impossible."
Shion raised a perfect brow, "What are you two getting at?"
Tsunemori spun round and stared at Shion, "Can you please match up the times of personal log-ins into the Institutes data base to the Drone technicians names, please?"
"You think one of them did a sneaky inside job?" She asked, typing away with vigour.
"Possibly," Tsunemori mumbled. "If we can match the names of the technicians to the names of the people logging into the system, then we can possibly try and track what that person had been looking at, at that time. Therefore, that could lead to finding out who found a way into making a drone become a part of a homicide."
Shion pursed her lips as she lit a cigarette, "Well from what I can see, all three of the technicians were logged into the system at similar times. All of them were just looking at different repairs needed on the Drones."
Could it just be a wall? Something we are not seeing?
"Can you please see exactly what these people were looking at? Which documents?" Tsunemori said, sniffing the smoke of the cigarette. It fuelled her to move faster. Her brain to tick. He and Shion smoked the same brand… It was almost uncanny.
"Eh-let me… ah, here we go." Shion mumbled, "Neo Kakashi, he was looking at the different valves of the Drone a few hours before entering the premises." She scrolled the list, "He was also using it to order new equipment for such valves."
"What about the girl?" Tsunemori asked, her eyes fixated on the second screen.
"Rheya Tastski? It looks like she was double checking on how to correctly rebuild a Dominator…"
"Seems… coincidental?" Ginoza said, the first thing he had muttered since entering the room.
Tsunemori narrowed her eyes, "Bring up her profile."
Shion clicked onto her, her profile was on the screen in moments. Rheya had a seemingly clear record. She attended a private high-school, paid for by her parents. Two fathers, one was born in Britain, the other in Japan. Rheya was adopted by the pair when she was twelve. She quickly grasped Japanese and English easily. Apparently no difficulties even though neither were her first language. She was Ukrainian, by birth. Her IQ was off the charts. Which was the thing that Tsunemori caught onto.
"Wait, why isn't she on our list for people with the highest IQs?" Yayoi asked, agitated as she walked closer to the screen.
Shion sighed, "People have a choice in publicising their IQs. With that IQ though, it'll be interesting what she works like. Whether or not she sees the world separately than we do."
Ginoza narrowed his eyes, "How can she have such a high IQ and such a low Psycho-pass?"
Tsunemori thought for a moment; does intelligence truly define a Psycho-Pass? If so, is that why people like Makishima and Kogami fell through the hole of destruction so easily? Surely that couldn't be the case, after all, Makishima wasn't technically insane. Not by the Sibyl system's standards. Kogami however was. It made her wonder, truly. What defined insanity? Was she as sane as she was due to a low IQ? Or was she truly just very good at keeping it clear? What caused people to have high Psycho-Passes anyway? Stress? Rape? A death of a loved one?
What truly defines insanity?
She pondered for a moment, before switching her thoughts back to the case at hand. Mentally slapping herself for thinking of him inside of her work space. She had done that twice today, it was slipping. But she now had a hold of her emotions, so now she could move on and do her job to the fullest potential.
Tastski was obviously someone like Tsunemori. She was a smart individual who could properly look after her Psycho-Pass, keeping it clear so it would never bother another person around her. Going through possibly what she had gone through growing up; being an orphan, getting adopted, learning two different languages and then living a completely different society to what you were previously used too - it must've been trying.
She had learned to calm herself. Just like Tsunemori had.
"What else was Tastski looking up during the log in period?" She finally spoke again.
Shion looked through the many different files that Tastski had been looking at. She never once seemingly tried to look at ways to manipulate a Dominator. Even though there were none at all of that matter. It would've shown if she had tried finding something along those lines.
Everything looked clean. Very clean.
Tsunemori looked back to her profile, those eyes that were a deep forest green looked back at her. She was a pretty girl. Roughly the same age as Tsunemori. Taller though, by a few inches, and was apparently a lot curvier. But there was something disturbing about this girl. Something that made Akane continuously look back too her. She was… different.
"Was there something wrong with the Dominators?" She asked softly.
Shion nodded, "They were the older model, so it would make sense for Tastski to rebuild a model to make it modernised to the new Sibyl standards." She lit another cigarette.
"What if someone was using a wall?" Tsunemori mumbled. She was thinking out-loud. They all looked bewildered.
"A wall?" Yayoi said, addled. "Like a firewall? We would've seen those."
"Or would you?" Tsunemori turned the question rhetorical, "If you were the best hacker in the world, and could make a firewall that is much more advanced than most firewalls, surely you'd make it, right?" Yayoi hesitated, but nodded. "From the start, we've all known the likelihood of someone hacking into the system was at least seventy percent. We can't, therefore, ignore the very logical conclusion of someone being able to make something even the Sibyl System cannot see. Something no one can see. Only the person who had administered the wall in the first place." They all seemingly caught on, nodding in approval. "Why wouldn't you, after all? If you had the high intelligence, you would. If you had the balls, that is." She smirked, "These records are too clean, too unoriginal, they are too boring for someone who is a hacker. Someone who does this sort of thing for a living."
She walked across the office, stretching her legs slightly, thinking further. "Someone like this lusts for a good game. They like to find a likeminded person to play a game of net-like chess with. Virtual, where you do not see the opponent. You just see their moves." She spun round, thinking out loud. "Question being, how do we find the game to begin with?"
"Excuse me," Tougane entered the lab, his reading glasses falling off his nose slightly. He pushed them upwards, "Sorry for interrupting the train of thought, but I have another track to add to the line." He smirked at his own joke.
Ginoza raised a brow, "What exactly is that, Tougane?"
He looked back at Ginoza and smiled, then to Tsunemori. "The Institute have mail, so do the inmates who are staying there. It seems that roughly ten hours before the murder, Knight received a letter through the post." He held up a piece of paper that was in a plastic wallet. Pocketed as evidence.
Tsunemori bit a lip, "What does the letter say?"
Tougane cleared his throat, bringing the letter to his view once more before he started to read. "'Dear old friend, it has been so long. You have disappeared from us, we all miss you here. You remember our number right? Give us a call whenever you feel the need. I'll put all out numbers in the letter, so you can get in touch again. I hope you are well, give us a call. Love, C.'"
Yayoi raised a brow, "And the numbers?"
He said the numbers slowly, physically putting hyphens between them when needed. "231-771-210….104-130-777."
Tsunemori took the letter carefully from Tougane's hands, reading it through again by herself. The numbers were written so carefully. As if they desperately wanted him to see those numbers clearly, with no trouble at all. The handwriting itself was wondrous, making her jealous as she read it. It was so smooth, so pristine.
Too pristine.
There was blood on the paper, Knight's blood. He had thrown the letter at one of the staff before shooting himself, apparently. Meaning only the spattering of his own fluids hit the paper, instead of completely drowning it.
Was he trying to give the letter to the staff to protect it? Or because it was the true reason behind him killing himself?
She sniffed the paper, it smelt like very rich paper. She could smell the cotton. It was professional paper, the kind that was imported for formal letters. It was expensive. But there was another smell lightly wafting through her senses. Biting her lip, she tried to place it. Apart from the smell of iron, she could smell something soothing.
It was something familiar.
Ginoza took the letter and sniffed it lightly, "Lemon Balm?"
"Yes… possibly." She replied, taking the letter back and biting the inside of her lip. "The numbers, Shion, are there any sequences?"
"Maybe," She said, scanning the numbers through the system. She rubbed the back of her neck and eyed Yayoi who smiled lightly and nodded. Tsunemori knew they were lovers, they would always hint at each other whether or not they'd see each other than night with a simple look. A look that Tsunemori had grasped onto. "Number sequences are a tricky business. Usually because they are an infinite sequence. There are a million in one ways that these numbers can be matched, crossed match, muddled and connected. It may take a while." She eyed Tsunemori, "I'll let you all know when I've found something, if at all."
Akane stood, her feet were sore. She was counting the hours down until she could go home, honestly, she was begging for a hot bubble bath. Stretching slightly on the spot, she decided to go back to the office and try and decipher the letter and numbers herself. It may take less time if more than a computer was trying to decrypt it.
Back at the office, Tougane made her another coffee. Ginoza was reading books whilst matching up paper types on the net. Apparently the paper was rare. It could help them narrow down the suspects if they knew who had brought them, and from where.
Tsunemori on the other hand, held the letter tightly in her hands. The plastic from the evidence bag making a squeaking noise. Her eyes scanned the numbers hundreds of times. They were too long to be mobile, home phone numbers and modern day fax machines would only need identification and you to say whom you want to send the fax too. The numbers were probably something, but were likely to be nothing. The possibly and the impossibility collided with each other. Like always when you were investigating a murder, things just never went your way.
She slid the letter on her desk, eyeing the computer screen before opening up the file Shion sent her. The CCTV footage. She plugged in headphones, popping on in her ear and listening. The usual clanging and tin sounds came from the footage from the Drone maintenance. Someone popped on a drill, connecting something that was familiar to the Drone before moving on to another task. She knew deep down she may not see anything. If this suspect did not want her to see them, she would not see them. It was as simple as that. She just had to plainly hope that the suspect was someone who desired a game.
She watched another few hours of the CCTV footage. Nothing new came up, only that the Drone technicians were efficient and professional. Not once did she they show signs in slacking off. Akane almost wished they did, it would've given her something to write down on her note pad. Which was blank from words, but had several half-assed doodles around the edges from boredom. She tapped her pen, watching as the footage kept rolling. She was about to give in, quite honestly just give up for the day and go home. She would eat some chocolate and watch a bad romance film. She then would sleep for a few hours before going for a job in the morning.
Anything was better than this.
Something suddenly caught her eye. Her eyes flicked upwards to the top of the screen, where something flickered. It was like static, but in one prone area and for only a couple of seconds - if that. She tapped back on the footage, watching it again. Re-watching it several times before, she realised that the footage had been tampered with. All along, something had been wrong with what she had been seeing.
They were just waiting for someone to pay attention.
She used the editing system, quickly cropping the few seconds of footage and making it into its own file. She sipped a cold sip of coffee, the buzz going straight to her brain. She zoomed into the footage, she zoomed to the highest number the system could do. She saved it to the system, trying to make out roughly what the letters were.
She put a sheet of her note pad to the screen, tracing the letters with a pen. Following it perfectly. It was quick to assume, that the letter were not Japanese. They were something that could be compared to English, but they had what Akane understood to be accents. They were completely foreign to her.
She tried to clear up the letters, separating them and increasing the size. Soon she had what appeared to be one word. In a language she didn't understand.
Tougane slid over on his chair, he had spotted that she had found something. He peeped over her should and narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew the language, but why would it be that word? He pondered lightly, before muttering to Tsunemori. "Pride."
She jumped, spinning her chair around to him. "Excuse me?"
"That word." He repeated, "Means pride in Romanian."
She stared for a moment, processing it. Tougane knew Romanian? Pride? What did that word mean in this context? Who had pride? And why did it matter? "I don't understand this message at all…"
"Mândrie… Why would he use a Romanian word? Why not put it in Japanese?" Ginoza interrupted.
Tougane put a finger to his lip, thinking. "Romania is made up of its own language, Romanian. But the country itself, I believe, has many different languages piled into its foreign walls." He tapped his lip while he talked, "Hungarian being the largest minority language. Then there is; Romani, Ukrainian, German, Russian and Turkish. Albeit, the likelihood that anyone in Romanian who speak these minority languages can understand Romanian, is a high possibility." He shrugged, "Plainly, maybe these people are just enjoying the fact they know a word in Romanian. Or maybe it is something else that we're not seeing yet."
Yayoi who had come in mid way of the conversation raised a brow, "Rheya Tastski originally came from Ukraine."
"Yes, but I think she would've used Ukrainian. Most blood bound Ukrainians use their languages a lot more than others. It is safer that way." Tougane said softly in reply. "If after all you were implying she might've put the message there."
Tsunemori tapped her head out of fatigue. Her head was hurting, its fogginess was becoming far too large to ignore. She would've taken pain killers, if she had some. She would have to wait it out…
Sickness… Laius Knight was a sick man.
Click-click, her mind made the noise in her head. Signifying that she had caught onto something once again. She spun in her chair, pulling herself to the desk and clicking onto the name search on the Sibyl System. She typed, 'Laius Knight' quickly into the search engine. Seconds passed, and his profile was in front of her. She skimmed the pages until she found what she was looking for. "Bingo," She whispered. "They knew each other."
"What?" Ginoza said, surprised.
She showed them the screen, "'Laius Knight was born in Romania in 2077, he was apart of an anonymous hacking group in 2099 where they would take money from rich individuals and plant the money in poorer individuals for free. The group itself is said to have changed name and occupation, apparently that being the reason Knight left in 2101.'" She sighed, "Though it shows that we have a motive of sorts, unfortunately Sibyl does not know the previous name of the hacking group… nor the new one."
"So… we are chasing ghosts?" Tougane smiled.
"So far, we are indeed chasing ghosts - but of a virtual kind."
She awoke suddenly in her bed. Sweat dripping profusely down her temple. She sat up, her bed creaking slightly under the weight change. She was still disorientated from what she had witnessed. What seemed to be the only thing she would witness lately in the land of dreams.
She had dreamt of him again. Those stone cold eyes that would occasionally glimmer under their storm like blue stare. They would stare at her in her dream, him holding her as he walked away from the wreckage of the truck. He looked worried, and for a moment she would always think that this time he'd stay with her. Come back to her with Makishima in his grasp, alive. But that never came. This was a nightmare after all. Nothing good came from them.
He would put her on the side of the road, in her dream she felt his hand caress her cheek for a moment. His thumb skimming over the wound on her face, his eyes shining with fury. She would reach for him, her hand battered and bruised from the crash. Her voice would be weak so pathetic it would remind her of a lost and vulnerable puppy. No wonder he did not listen to her when she begged him not to go after him. To stay.
It was her fault. She wasn't strong enough back then.
Sometimes, in her dream. He would kiss her cheek. Out of longing to be touched by him, the longing to have something like that to remember him by. Something other than buying packets of cigarettes, his brand and burning them religiously in her apartment. The smell soothed her. His smell. But all the same, a kiss would have been a lot healthier.
She knew, in a way, if it weren't Makishima he was after - he would've. Back then, probably even now. She wasn't enough for him. Maybe now she would be. They could have been lovers. She would've accepted that. Enjoyed that.
If it was him making love to her, she would never have minded.
Her mother had been calling her frequently over the passed year. Asking if she had a partner, whether or not she was ready to settle down. "Try to find a boyfriend," she would say. "You're pretty enough for one." She would joke. "After all, I'm married and look at me." Again another pitiful joke.
Akane wasn't sure if she loved Kogami. Or whether it was that scalding hot 'what if?' question that would pound her head as she slept. What if she did fall for him, and he didn't kill Makishima. Would they be together? Or would they just occasionally fuck and then act like nothing has happened. Would he be her dirty secret from the past when she finally met a man good enough to be her husband? Would he be her lover whilst married, knowingly looking at her when she would bring a blue eyed child to work on themed dates on the calendar, or when they bumped into each other in the street?
The fact was, Akane did not know what Kogami was to her. A lover without the sex? A psychological lover? No, that sounded psychopathic. No… Kogami was something to her, unfortunately, she didn't know the right word for it yet.
She wasn't going to get anymore sleep tonight. Her head ached as she moved to the bathroom, turning the room settings of her apartment to look like a nice cosy cottage. She lit a cigarette, placing it in the ashtray, letting it burn and waft the smell through her apartment. She turned the shower on, stripping off her underwear before getting in.
In the shower, she thought longer than it took to clean herself. Once she had rinsed the conditioner from her hair, she found herself just staring off. He was still on her mind, like always. He was always there, even if she didn't want him to be.
Her mind wandered back to what her mother had been trying to say to her a while back. "Go on vacation, honey. You've been working non-stop for a year now. When we last face called, you looked so tired. You've aged, you look twenty-four instead of twenty-one - nearly twenty-two… Please promise me, if you can go on vacation before Christmas, you will. Remember, you're here for the twenty-fifth okay?"
Her mother was right, Akane needed to have a vacation. Technically, she had eighty holiday days left. She hadn't used any of them. She didn't plan too at least until this case was closed. She couldn't go until then, right?
She couldn't go anywhere until she finds where Kogami is. Until he decides to find her again. That was her promise.
She put her hand to the cold wall of her shower, tears streaming from her eyes. Her gut hurting. "Kogami… Where are you?" She whimpered as she fell to her knees crying.
Hello! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I sure enjoyed writing this one. I used some of the stuff I learned from World Development last year into play here. It seems the class taught me something, I think. And so has the TV show, Perception which I recommend if you like really good cop shows with a nice little twist. I hope the scene at the end was to your liking, it is semi-foreshadowing I suppose. And I hope the whole finding the clues seemed realistic. Leave a review, and I will see you next time. See ya!